Ink cartridges are currently used as disposable cartridges in printers, fax machines etc., and arise in large quantities in the form of waste once their capacity of ink has been consumed. An ink cartridge of this type contains a wide range of various materials and mainly consists of a plastic casing, an absorbent/floating, readily deformable plastic foam material within the casing, an ink jet and a circuit with electrical contacts, in which context virtually all of the components still retain a residue of ink once the ink capacity of the cartridge has been consumed. The absorbent foam-type material consists of polyurethane or a similar material and its function is to absorb the ink and to stabilise it within the cartridge in order to prevent sloshing of the ink when the ink cartridge is moved at high speed together with the print head inside the printer. In particular, this plastic foam material still retains a relatively high proportion of ink even after the ink cartridge is spent. The casing of the ink cartridge consists of plastic, e.g. polysulfonate. The ink jet contains a noble metal, e.g. gold.
This noble metal is found on a nickel coating. And furthermore the circuit printed on a board for control of the ink cartridge contains noble metal, e.g. gold. The ink cartridge also contains proportions of pure steel, as in the casing walls, for example.
On this basis, the objective of this invention is to produce a process and a device for separation of wanted materials from product mixes, which contain floating/absorbent material, plastics and metals with a ferromagnetic content, in which context the wanted materials are reliably and completely separated.